A new social-media trend is challenging 鈥渂ored鈥� people from around the world to clean up garbage to make their neighborhoods a cleaner place.

Since last week, people from across Canada, parts of Europe, Colombia, the United States, Vietnam, the Philippines, Iraq, India and Dubai have been posting before-and-after photos of streets, parks and entire beaches no longer covered with trash.

#Trashtag has been trending since last Tuesday after Arizona man Byron Román of Algerian Drici Tani Younes. The first one showed Younes surrounded by garbage and then a second one had him standing in the same place behind nine filled trash bags.

Román saw Younes鈥� photos being shared in Guatemala and then he re-posted the photos on his own as a 鈥渘ew challenge for all you bored teens.鈥�

鈥淭ake a photo of an area that needs some cleaning or maintenance, then take a photo after you have done something about it, and post it,鈥� he wrote, including the hashtags 鈥渢rashtag鈥� and 鈥淏asuraChallenge鈥� -- basura meaning garbage in Spanish.

Since then, the photo has been shared 332,000 times with over 100,000 people reacting to it from all over the world.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what caused the viral part,鈥� Román laughed during a phone interview with CTVNews.ca. He鈥檇 heard of similar clean-up challenges so he had no idea why so many people resonated with his post.

Younes, the man in the photo, has been cleaning up neighbohoods for years and the #trashtag has been floating around since 2015.


#TRASHTAG ORIGINALLY STARTED IN 2015

During a road trip across California, activist and outdoor enthusiast Steven Reinhold and his friend came up with the hashtag after they vowed to pick up a hundred pieces of trash wherever they went -- especially in the national parks they visited.

鈥淭he beauty is in its simplicity, really,鈥� he said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca. Reinhold said it鈥檚 鈥渕ind blowing鈥� to see hundreds of thousands of people sharing his or similar hashtags.

鈥淚t鈥檚 been incredible and pretty surreal 鈥� we always dreamed that it would blow up and go big,鈥� Reinhold said.

Before the hashtag blew up, he said it had been used over 20,000 times, particularly from people in the American nature and outdoors industries.

鈥淲e considered that moderately successfully,鈥� he laughed. 鈥淏ut now it鈥檚 all over the world.鈥�


'THE WORLD WAS READY FOR A GOOD CHALLENGE'

Reinhold didn鈥檛 want to take all the credit for all clean-up challenges. But he thinks that people already participating in 鈥渓eave no trace鈥� challenges in parks or beaches now had one singular hashtag to rally behind.

鈥淚 think that the world was ready for a good challenge. There are so many ridiculous [ones] out there,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 time for a better one.鈥�

He hopes that eventually the trashtag challenge simply becomes a common staple of whenever people are outside.

鈥淵ou see a piece of trash somewhere you trashtag it ... the goal is to make it a commonplace thing,鈥� he said, laughing that 鈥渕aybe trashtag will make it into the dictionary.鈥�

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